Last Days in Eden Ann Kelley 9781910021279

She had made me envious. Strange as it might seem, I had not known envy before. Surely there must be other ways of living, I thought, not hand-to-mouth, alone, in a draughty old shack looking out at the same scene, day after day. Was this to be my future?

It's 2137, and the future's dark.

Sixteen-year-old Flora is scraping out a humble living, selling homegrown supplies from her late grandparents' run-down Shell Shack and keeping her illegal copy of Pride and Prejudice hidden from the terrifying Uzi soldiers.

But Flora's life changes when she meets Li-li, the daughter of a powerful Rice Lord. Flora is seduced by the lavish lifestyle of her rulers, but also sees the brutality that underpins their lifestyle. What choices will she face on her last days in Eden?

ANN KELLEY is a photographer and prize-winning poet who once nearly played cricket for Cornwall. She has previously published collections of photographs and poems, an audio book of cat stories, and some children's fiction, including the award-winning Gussie series. Her novel Runners is in the 2014 Book Trust School Library Pack, as a future classic. She lives with her second husband and several cats on the edge of a cliff in Cornwall where they have survived a flood, a landslip, a lightning strike and the roof blowing off. She runs writing courses for medics and medical students, and speaks about her poetry therapy work with patients at medical conferences.

It's a disturbing, compulsive read that makes you realise that not so very much needs to shift for this to happen here. HELEN DUNMORE on Runners

The author as artist evokes people and places with delicacy, humour and truth - a novel of outstanding beauty. COSTA AWARD JUDGES on The Bower Bird